How Many Wizened Cenns?

Mike FloresThursday, March 24, 2011

ast week's PTQ Top 8 results were pretty unbelievable if you ask me. More or less since the release of Ravnica: City of Guilds this column (and its predecessor, Swimming With Sharks) has tried to promote the idea of diversity in competitive metagames.

... But I don't know if I ever anticipated a set of performances like last week's!

There were five different Bant aggro decks in last week's Top 8s; buuchan's was the one that won the 3/13 online PTQ.

One of the things that I like about Extended Bant decks is that they can be so good at so many different things. Traditionally we have seen decks with Rhox War Monk and Mana Leak; great offensive (even offensive / defensive) options, plus the ability to say "no" if necessary.

While Bant—being creature-focused—isn't overwhelmingly powerful in the sense of planeswalker overload, Elspeth, Knight-Errant is always pretty awesome (especially when laced together with something as big and nasty as, say, a Mirran Crusader), and no one has to convince anyone about Jace, the Mind Sculptor. But above and beyond everything else, this deck plays arguably the best card in the current Extended, Cryptic Command.

Stoneforge Mystic and Ranger of Eos give Boros a number of additional superpowers. For one, the White 187s simply make the deck more card-advantageous. The ability to search up extra cards just makes it easier to win attrition wars (and it doesn't hurt that they can be high quality threats as Figure of Destiny and the like). But we also see effective sideboard singletons like Bonehoard, which helps ensure Hawley will win a creature-trading brawl, or the aforementioned Forge-Tenders, that leach so much Red Deck will to live with every seemingly innocuous tap of White mana.

With multiple Nettle Sentinels out, you can potentially net mana by casting a cheap green spell (say a one-mana Elf), then untapping your Nettle Sentinels, re-tapping them for more mana via Heritage Druid, and so on. No one ever really gets out of being hit by a Primal Command, and in this deck, Primal Command can go and get either a small card to keep the mana flowing, or the one Regal Force to almost guarantee ongoing velocity once you already have the other components on the battlefield.

Basically you want to have at least one Elf o that can actually attack this turn, make a ton of mana using Heritage Druids (which don't actually require that your Elves have been hanging out for the full "I'm no longer summoning sick" turn), which you use to go and get Ezuri, either by natural means or some tonnage or manipulation. With enough mana, you can easily get your potentially attacking Elves big enough to trample the opponent to death using Ezuri's "Overrun" ability again and again.

Which is not to say you can't nickel-and-dime your opponents, just develop on the battlefield with more power (Elvish Archdruid and Imperious Perfect), and play a traditionally progressive offense (say Bramblewood Paragon into Joraga Warcaller), because you certainly can. Just be aware of Elves as a dual-nature creature deck and combo deck.

Though LaVassaur has the pedigree via his PTQ win, you might want to be aware of the slightly different approach by McDonough in the Seattle Top 8. Where LaVassaur had the mighty Primal Command and the new Green Sun's Zenith for spells, Brandden played only three copies of Lead the Stampede. In a deck of essentially all creatures, Lead the Stampede seems like an avenue well worth considering... especially for a deck that gets so much out of repeatedly playing cheap creatures.

Despite the greater attention for the most part being paid to Blue Valakut decks (Wargate and non-WargatePrismatic Omens builds alike), don't forget that there is still a borders-blurring Green-Red Valakut option available in the format.

Not too much to say here about Verrall's Fargo winner, but a tip of the hat to his inclusion of Kozilek, Butcher of Truth in the sideboard.

Speaking of gigantic creatures in the Fargo Top 8, Voice of the Pro Tour Rich Hagon placed third in that event, with Green-White Summoning Trap:

Mono-White Control

Moving from a big White deck that we have talked quite a lot about in this column this season to one that probably none of us would have thought to talk about, check out Jeremiah Haney's Mono-White Control winner from Seattle, WA:

This is a deck with quite a few things going on, and one that probably most of you have never seen in action (I know that I fall into this camp). I will try to do the build justice.

All the creatures have some kind of "enters the battlefield" ability. Of these, the most unusual (of, frankly, an unusual bunch) are Flickerwisp and Glimmerpoint Stag. Even on their own, these creatures can remove Bitterblossom tokens permanently, but when combined with other cards, they can help the squad overall build value. For example, Flickerwisp and Glimmerpoint Stag can reload a Mortarpod or reset an Oblivion Ring or Runed Halo... or get it going with any of the other sixteen "enters the battlefield" creatures in the deck.

A mono-white deck might theoretically have issues with card advantage relative to a blue-based control deck, but Haney's weapon of choice played four copies of Pilgrim's Eye and four copies of Wall of Omens. Together, all of these help draw more lands and help the deck play lots of lands, such that it can eventually get sufficient Plains in play to make Emeria, the Sky Ruin interesting.

Sun Titan remains Sun Titan, one of the most indomitable finishers in the format. Though here if you get rid of the first one you will very often have to deal with it again, eventually, due to Emeria shenanigans. And while there are no Mountains or Swamps in sight, Arid Mesa + Sun Titan can play a very Primeval Titan-like combination of cards that, again, works more land onto the board for those inevitable Emerias.

Overall, the deck has a ton to frustrate attackers and voluminous creature removal, much of it quite efficient.

It will be interesting to see if this deck, so unusual next to what we "usually" see in Top 8s (let alone amongst the actual weekly winners) picks up in popularity and continues to rack up Blue Envelopes.

As we have looked at all the various decks that actually won last week, I want to devote the last part of this article to some devilishly rogue designs that bear some attention and consideration. First up comes a really different look from one of Magic's most successful and innovative deck designers:

There are two main lines going on here, and they are of course deeply entwined with one another.

The first is that of creature density. Billy played more than 50% creatures. Having a lot of creatures means revealing a lot of creatures as the top card of his deck, which makes Mul Daya Channelers big. Of course he can manipulate what is on the top of his deck with Elvish Harbinger; Jace, the Mind Sculptor; and to a lesser degree Fauna Shaman. Having a lot of creatures lets Billy re-buy his Vengevines pretty consistently (especially when he is drawing more than one card in a turn, however he is doing that), though it bears mentioning that his Bloodbraid Elf re-buy percentage is significantly lower than a stock Naya deck, simply because of the presence of three different pieces of Bloodbraid Elf–eligible Equipment.

The second theme to Billy's deck, already hinted at, is the heretofore unexplored deck design space around the top of one's deck. Is this the first viable deck that plays Elvish Harbinger? I don't recall that Elf being played even in other Elves decks in the past. Well, in this deck the Harbingers allow Moreno to set up Bloodbraid Elf, or jump all the way to Sages of the Anima... and then let's see what happens! When Jace, the Mind Sculptor gets involved we can see as many as three cards being drawn in a turn, and Billy will draw more than one card per turn, on average, constantly churning through his deck for fresh looks. Sages + Jace, in particular, seems almost overwhelming... and it is a good thing that Billy has so many creatures that can potentially tap for mana (Birds of Paradise, Elvish Harbinger, Noble Hierarch, and often Mul Daya Channelers), because he is going to have quite a few cards in hand, and you need a lot of mana to handle all those extra things to do.

Here we have essentially two different combo decks, laced together in a "good stuff" framework.

First off, you can kind of just play as a passable blue-red control deck. Sea Gate Oracle is a fine card, and we have seen it perform in Standard blue-black decks. In this deck it just kind of keeps things moving so that you can draw into your Lightning Bolt or your Mana Leak or whatever you need to make a one-for-one or possibly profitable trade. In addition, you have the weak combo of Sea Gate Oracle + Splinter Twin, which is not what you want at all, but especially when your opponent can't kill a Sea Gate Oracle (say the opposing deck is Green-White Trap), this combo is going to be dominant, and embarrassingly so.

SpeCialK's deck has enough Mountains that it can actually just go for a Valakut kill off of Scapeshift without Prismatic Omen, but unlike the green-red or Wargate-type Valakut decks, you have to be much more aware of which lands you play, which lands you have on the battlefield, and how many lands you have access to in your deck, rather than just assuming that your Primeval Titan or Prismatic Omen and a bunch of fetch lands are going to get you there.

As a final blur, let's look at the finalist from the MTGO PTQ, reminiscent of Standard SparkBlade (minus the Squadron Hawks):